Redemptively Engaging Peoples and Cultures

This is our mission statement—To redemptively engage peoples and cultures—snipped from our vision statement: “Cultivating communities of Spirit-led disciples who redemptively engage peoples and cultures through Christ for the glory of God.” Last night our core team discussed what it means to be missional, to redemptively engage peoples and cultures.

After defining culture, we watched the video below of Tim Keller. A great disucssion ensued. Below are some highlights.

§As a church that seeks to redemptively engage the peoples and cultures of Austin, it is imperative that we understand the peoples and cultures of Austin.

·Certain amount of cultural knowledge that I possess as a church planter, some from books other from conversations. However, we are all called to make disciples of all nations, and anecdotal knowledge is better!

·How can we do this?

·We are all missionaries. Begin asking people what they believe about faith, culture, city growth, environmental issues, etc. Try to write down verbatim quotes after discussions and bring your answers next week. These will inform our discussion about being missional next week.

oEngaging Culture: What do we mean by engagement? It is an approach to culture that is neither secularist nor sectarian.It is neither uncritical nor hypercritical, not thoughtless participation in or blanket withdraw from culture.Instead, it is my hope that we will be convinced, inspired and equipped to critically and winsomely engage culture by recognizing and celebrating what is good, redeeming and renewing what is broken, critiquing what is gray, and rejecting what is bad.